


Shun the Light

by hauntedjaeger (saellys)



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, The Mandalorian (TV)
Genre: Complicated Relationships, Cunnilingus, Dialogue Heavy, Established Relationship, F/F, F/M, Multi, Not Canon Compliant, POV Bisexual Character, Penis In Vagina Sex, Porn with Feelings, Threesome - F/F/M, Vaginal Fingering, Woman on Top
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-09
Updated: 2019-12-09
Packaged: 2021-02-26 01:20:27
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,323
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21725146
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/saellys/pseuds/hauntedjaeger
Summary: Cara has heard a scattering of myths about lovers who could never see each other. They could live in perfect happiness that way, but if they lit a lamp, or looked behind them on the path, the spell would be broken or they’d be sent to the underworld or something. She didn’t really understand the theme until now. It’ssickeninglyromantic.
Relationships: Cara Dune/Omera (Star Wars), Cara Dune/The Mandalorian (The Mandalorian TV)/Omera (Star Wars), The Mandalorian (The Mandalorian TV)/Omera (Star Wars)
Comments: 28
Kudos: 188





	Shun the Light

Visit enough planets, and you start to collect bits of the cultures. It might be rude words, or melodies, or names for the sunset. For Cara it was myths--especially the first contact stories. Among the civilizations that did not develop faster-that-light travel before they were visited by those who did, there were (with allowances for nuances in translation) sky people and earth people. 

She’s never made first contact with a less technologically advanced civilization. Even so, what could she be but a sky person? She was born on a ship, she used to boast before she discovered that wasn’t particularly unusual. She doesn’t put down roots, and once set foot on five different worlds in a standard month. 

But here she is in a gust of repulsor wash, craning her neck just like all the farmers who have never so much as left the continent, to watch the _Razor Crest_ fly overhead. 

She has to admit that what she’s feeling can, in part, be summed up as awe. He came back after all. Cara half expected he’d be too greengut. 

And speaking of greengut, she pushes aside the part of what she’s feeling that can be summed up as dread. 

She’s been helping Stoke put up a new drying rack, but now she looks toward the ponds. Omera stands up to her hips in the water, scooping krill, and Winta and all the other nuggets flock to her now with questions she has no way to answer: _when will he get here_ and _why did he stay away so long_ and _do you think he brought presents._

Omera catches Cara’s eye and waves her on, so Cara drives in the last couple of posts and leaves Stoke to put up the crosspieces. The village noises fade as she crosses the clearing toward the spot where a column of birds has risen, a couple klicks into the woods. 

The _Crest’_ s ramp is down when she arrives. There is a half-loaded hoversled, and presently he emerges with another pair of camtonos. “Hey,” he says, like it hasn’t been a year. 

“Hey yourself. You came back.” 

“You stayed.” He looks okay, a little dinged up, a couple new armor segments. He’s not favoring anything when he walks, so whatever happened, he must have patched himself up before heading here. 

“Well, somebody had to.” 

He halts on his way back up the ramp. “How many?” 

“Five.” There were six hunters, actually, but one of them was after her. 

A sharp jerk of his helmet--the unmistakable motion of a silent expletive. Cara adds, “Nobody came through in the last couple months, though.” 

He nods, mostly to himself. “Good.” And he disappears back into the ship. 

The kid toddles out next. “Hey, squirt.” Cara takes a knee and they regard each other, Cara smiling and the child unreadable—but happy, she thinks. “You did what you had to do?” she asks when the Mandalorian comes back. 

“There’s no one left to come after him,” he confirms. 

Cara nods, studying his posture. “But you’re still not going to take it off.” 

“I can’t just--” A metallic sigh. “I thought… hoped… she might accept me like this.” His voice grows weak and self-conscious at the end, and his empty hands open and close. Such a fragile hope, a thing that almost vanishes in the voicing. She recalls how easily he trusted her, the moment it was clear that neither of them was there to kill the other. 

“Yeah,” she says. “I think she might be into that.” He stands straighter, and Cara turns toward the village to hide her smile. 

He follows, steering the sled by remote. “You should know,” she says after a few silent minutes, “Omera and me have a pretty good thing going right now.” 

She hears the sled halt, and turns back to find him already deflating, the downward cant of his helmet suggesting an unfocused gaze. “Oh, come on, I didn’t say it was exclusive. I just want to make sure there are no surprises.” 

“It was a bad idea to come back,” he mutters. “I shouldn’t--” 

“She wants you, okay? Loosen up, Mando.” 

He tilts his head at her. “My name is Dyn.” 

“Dyn?” 

“Dyn Jarren.” 

She recognizes this as an exchange of intimacies, in its way. Cara sniffs. “I like Mando better.” 

“Okay, Dune,” he says. 

He really does just roll over. Omera will have a field day--she’s got a bossy streak in bed. Cara gets back to walking, and he’s at her side after a few steps. “Anything else I missed?” he says. 

“A good harvest. We seeded a new pond, to the southwest. Winta disassembled my blaster and put it back together again without any parts missing. Pack of grinjers came too close, and we ate like queens for a week.” 

“Sounds nice.” He means all of it, she can tell, and it has been. An uninterrupted peace and uncomplicated way to live, in a place where everyone just wants to get by. 

She kriffing loves it here. 

“Hope you’re ready to pull your weight. Being Omera’s shiny toy is nice and all, but they barely bring in enough to keep me fed, and I help with the harvest.” 

“I’ll pull my weight,” he says. She tries to imagine him waist-deep in a pond, wearing all that steel. It’s a funny thought, and he peers at her when she has a chuckle about it. 

“Not sure you know what you’re getting yourself into,” she tells him. “Omera is ronto-level stubborn.” 

“Yeah, I’ve met her.” 

She claps her hand on his pauldron, and sees her reflection smirk back from his visor. “Sincerely, pal: you don’t know the half of it.” 

Winta reaches them then, bursting through the trees to scoop up the kid. “I’m so happy you’re back! Guess what! Driti promised to host a sleepover for all the kids tonight in the barn!” 

Cara turns to the Mandalorian and waggles her eyebrows. Without moving at all, he makes it perfectly clear that he’s glaring at her. 

Winta carries the kid off to the village. And then Omera is there, drying her hands on a rag, and she gives the Mandalorian a smile so bright, Cara could swear it gleams off his armor. 

He dips his head to her. “Are you well?” 

“I am,” she says, with another smile for Cara. “Are you?” 

“Yes,” he says, and Cara rolls her eyes at them acting like they’re not absolutely dying to get each other naked as soon as the sun is down. 

“How long will you be staying?” Omera asks politely. 

He makes a sound like an old-fashioned tread tank that needs its bearings oiled. “I thought… That is--” 

“He doesn’t have a dust-off day in mind,” Cara supplies, and he nods. 

Omera bites her lip, eyeing him, and when the silence stretches on she remembers herself and says, “Good! We’re all very glad to see you.” 

Cara snorts. She takes the sled remote from him and pushes on to the village. 

He’s timed this well: one of the moons is new tonight, and the other hangs low to the horizon. But before dark, there is food, and more of it than usual to welcome one of the farmers’ heroes back. A little ironic, since he doesn’t eat with them. But Cara eats the equivalent of her portion and his, anticipating a night under the stars. It gets chilly here, outside of Omera’s bed. 

To her surprise, he joins her on the evening patrol. “Too much?” she says. 

“No. It feels good to be back. I just wanted to talk to you.” 

She walks her usual circuit, twenty meters from the edge of the woods. “What’s on your mind?” 

“Do you like men?” he asks, and Cara trips on a root. 

She recovers and turns to peer at him. “Why are you asking me that?” 

“Because Omera set out enough mats in the house for three people.” 

_Oh._ “That’s… thoughtful.” Cara chews the inside of her cheek. From the moment his ship buzzed the village, Cara abandoned all thought of getting laid tonight, and maybe the next three or four nights. But if Omera’s got that into her head, there will be no getting it out. She wonders if he had the nerve to question it, and Omera had to put her foot down. 

“You haven’t answered my question.” 

Kriffing bounty hunters. Well, two can play the Stony Interrogation Game. She scrutinizes him in the purpling light, long enough for it to get uncomfortable. “I like some men.” 

“I’d like you to be with us tonight,” he says. 

Cara grins, slow. “Greedy bastard,” she says. “You wouldn’t know what to do with me.” She reaches over to give his pauldron a thump. 

He catches her wrist in one hand. “I know what to do,” he says, and it’s the most self-assured he has sounded since landing. He lets go, and walks back the way they came. 

Cara waits until he’s well away before taking a steadying breath. 

There’s nothing waiting in the woods that night, and on her way back the light from Omera’s door is like a beacon. The Mandalorian is checking on the kid one more time. Omera waits in the house. 

Cara leaves her boots by the door. She has spent one hundred and sixty-four nights in Omera’s bed. She has tasted every part of her. They have broken bread together, they have argued, they have held each other. Cara’s presence doesn’t need an explanation. “He wanted me here,” she says upon entering. 

“Yes,” Omera says, eyes shining. She kisses Cara, which is a good start to the night. When they’re done she watches her a moment longer, her thumb gliding across Cara’s cheek, before she turns to finish her preparations. 

Omera has rigged up twine between the roof supports, and hung thick blankets there in a rough cube. A house within a house. It reminds Cara of besieging pillow forts with her sisters, a long time ago. 

She looks inside, and yes, that is a remarkable quantity of mats. There’s a blanket stretched across the support lines for a roof, too. 

Omera is coiling her hair at the crown of her head. “Don’t pin it up,” Cara advises. 

Omera’s hands still. “Since when do I take your hair advice?” she asks, but she’s still smiling. Cara expects there isn’t much, short of another raider attack, that could stop her smiling right now.

Cara only shrugs. It will be too dark for him to appreciate it when Omera lets it down again. Cara knows well the silken, fragrant cascade of it by firelight and moonlight. That is hers to know. 

Omera starts putting out the glowlamps, and Cara gets her gauntlets and gorget off. She goes into the little love nest just as the last light dies, and then she hears his step on the planks, and feels the air shift as Omera enters and he follows. Once the blankets close again, they could all be standing out in space. There is a crescent of slightly-lighter-black that might be the top of his chrome dome. 

“Is this dark enough?” says Omera. 

Cara hears him fiddle with the gizmos in his helmet, switching between spectrums. She halfway wonders what she looks like in thermal imaging right now, if her face is as hot as it feels. 

They have fought against each other, they have fought together, they have fallen asleep in the open with no one keeping watch. This is just another thing people do. 

“It is,” he says. A clink of beskar, as he turns toward Omera. “Would you do it, please?” 

“Yes,” Omera whispers in a hungry way. 

Cara has heard a scattering of myths about lovers who could never see each other. They could live in perfect happiness that way, but if they lit a lamp, or looked behind them on the path, the spell would be broken or they’d be sent to the underworld or something. She didn’t really understand the theme until now. It’s _sickeningly_ romantic. 

She hears his ragged breath without the filter, and then he and Omera both are breathing through their noses and making little sounds into each other’s mouths. The helmet, forgotten, falls heavily to the mat. 

Cara reaches out in the dark and finds the back of his head. His hair is soft, and shaggy. Almost too long for the helmet. “You need a trim,” she observes. 

“I’ll buzz it off later,” he says when they come up for air. 

Omera’s hand settles above Cara’s, and she clenches her fingers, and he lets her tilt his head back. “I like it this length,” Omera says sweetly. 

They go back to kissing each other. Cara runs her hand down his back, feeling for the straps that keep his armor in place. He shifts, raising his right arm, and her fingers find the catch at his side, and the breastplate and a layer of padding loosen. 

She drops her hands to his hips, and finds Omera already working there on the gunbelt and trousers. When those are gone, Cara pushes Omera’s hands away and reaches forward. He’s hard, of course, and when she grasps the base of his shaft he groans, low. 

All at once he twists in her arms and Cara grunts in surprise, but the sound gets smothered by his mouth. His lips are dry and surprisingly full, and his stubble prickles against her skin. He tastes faintly of Omera, but also of capsule rations and something sweet. And he’s _good_ at this. 

She squeezes him, and he jerks back. “He’s not gonna last five minutes,” she says to Omera. 

In retaliation he bites her lip, just a little. 

Omera’s soft belly presses against the back of Cara’s hand; she’s naked already. “That’s quitter talk,” she says. She reaches past him to pull Cara’s base layer over her head, and Cara lets go of him long enough to take it off and her leggings too, and then she hears the rustle of canvas, and when she moves close again his back is bare. 

“We should--” He swallows, tries again. “We should lie down.” 

Cara has half a mind to tell him to make her, but if they start that they might shift the blankets, and the fun would end real fast. 

He moves first, descending, and a moment later Omera makes a sound Cara knows well. She follows it with his name. 

“Please,” he answers. 

Cara stands there, listening to them arrange themselves. Before she has a chance to feel left out, he taps her ankle. Cara stoops down and finds Omera stretched out on the mat. “There you are,” Omera says, voice gone all silky from want. 

Cara kisses her, and while she’s kissing she runs one hand over Omera’s collarbone and down. Past the slope of Omera’s belly, she finds the Mandalorian taking his time at the smooth flesh of Omera’s thighs. Cara gives him an encouraging pat. 

He moves upward slightly, and Omera trembles. Cara puts her lips around Omera’s nipple and holds it there, not moving, not licking, not doing anything. 

After a minute to find his pace, the Mandalorian sets his hand on Cara’s thigh. She releases Omera and laughs at him. “Don’t get cocky.” 

“Mmm,” he says, and Omera shivers again. He doesn’t take his hand away, and when Cara parts her legs, his palm slides up.

For the first time she wishes she could see. Is he pale enough to blush? Are the veins standing out on his neck? What does this kind of focus look like in his eyes? 

His thumb finds her first, and then he turns his hand and passes the side of his first finger between her folds and up, slow, letting her feel every single callus. 

So that’s how it’s going to be. Omera gets the soft, sweet parts of him, and Cara gets what’s left. All right then. He puts the heel of his hand to her cunt this time, and Cara rolls her hips to show she’s game, that this suits her. He drags his palm, and she moves, little motions, until he’s in the right place. He strokes there, too slow at first, but when she stays silent he speeds up, gets a little rougher. 

Cara has to admit, he knows what to do. She makes a pleased sound, and he hums back, and Omera arches. “I’m close,” she says. “Slow down.” 

He does slow down, she can hear that. His hand keeps its pace though—impressive. It’s building into a delicious burn. Cara gets on one elbow and presses her tongue across Omera’s nipple, draws back a centimeter, and blows. 

“Nngh,” says Omera. She gulps air. “I’ll get you back for that.” Cara’s counting on it. Omera’s arm, languid, goes around Cara’s shoulders. “If he can bring us both off at once, I think we should keep him.” 

They both breathe in then, because he takes the challenge and shifts for a better angle. One fingertip crooks at Cara’s entrance, and she hitches her hips. 

“He knows he’s yours already,” Cara sighs. “He’s got you all over his pretty face. He’s probably going to put the helmet on right after, so it’ll smell like you.” 

He pushes two fingers into Cara. It’s more than Omera usually gives her, and she moans louder than she means to. Now Omera rolls Cara’s nipple between her thumb and forefinger, now the Mandalorian rubs at her with his thumb, and now Cara is thoroughly outgunned. “I thought you wanted to come with me,” she pants. 

“First I’m getting you back.” And Cara feels Omera’s teeth at her breast. She shakes, and the Mandalorian curls his fingers and hums again, not just for Omera’s benefit but to goad Cara on too, then she’s seizing around his fingers and seeing stars in their dark hideaway. 

When she recovers--and she recovers quickly--she puts her hand on the back of his neck. He tests her by starting to lift his head, and she presses down. 

The sounds he’s making become wetter, more reckless. Omera writhes. He takes his fingers out of Cara and presses his hand against her gut, but she isn’t going anywhere. 

“Hurry it up,” Cara tells him. “She waited a year to ride you.” 

Omera curses in a language Cara doesn’t know. Cara cups Omera’s breast in one hand. Under her other hand, his neck muscles work. His thumb moves in a firm, reassuring circle on Cara’s hip. All in good time. 

“He came back for you,” Cara tells Omera. “Be an idiot not to. You know you’re the best thing that’s ever happened to him?” 

This time she feels it against her hand when he vocalizes his agreement. “Do you have any idea how rare it is to find someone who makes you feel wanted?” she asks Omera. “Someone who feels like home?” 

She has dirtier things to say, but Omera clutches her, turns her gasping mouth toward Cara’s. “Am I—the best thing—that’s ever happened to you?” 

“By a landslide,” Cara says, and kisses her. Omera cries out into her mouth, and Cara holds her through a long spasm. Only when she knows they’ve made it through the aftershocks does Cara allow him to take his mouth off Omera’s cunt. 

Cara pillows Omera’s head on her arm, and lays back on the mat. She hears him breathing hard; he lifts his hand off her and moves up until his face is somewhere near Omera’s chest. She can tell how careful he is about where he puts his weight on Omera. He lays one arm across Cara. “You really think I’m pretty?” 

She grins into the dark and touches his face. Broad cheekbones. A high-bridged nose, broken a few times. Heavy brows, and lashes long enough to brush her palm. A strong jaw, wet from Omera. A mouth that’s good at kissing, good at making Omera come, a mouth that crucially doesn’t talk much, a mouth that chases Cara’s hand now to nip at the base of her thumb. 

“Sure,” she says. She feels him smile. 

“Get up,” says Omera, and he does at once. 

“Stay there, Dune.” He probably just doesn’t want her to show him up. But Cara follows orders for now, and stretches out so she’s taking up probably more than half of the mats. Omera’s knee alights next to Cara’s hip. The Mandalorian’s calf touches Cara’s, angled a little, knee lifted. He doesn’t lie back. 

Cara listens to them touch each other. “I thought of you,” he says, voice so soft. “Every day.” 

Omera’s long hair grazes Cara’s side as she kisses him. “Do you still believe you don’t belong here?” 

“Here,” he says, “here I do.” They draw a breath in unison. 

Quietly as she can, Cara wipes her face. It’s gotten hot. 

Omera’s knee shifts with her movements; so does his calf. After a while he leans back, or Omera pushes him, and his sweaty hair flattens against Cara’s bicep. “Hey,” he says, a little breathless. 

“Hey,” says Cara. She reaches up to Omera, who puts her cheek against Cara’s hand. Cara threads her fingers into Omera’s hair, just like she does when Omera sits in her lap and lets Cara bring her off one-handed. 

The Mandalorian moves to plant his foot by Cara’s thigh, and on his next thrust Omera’s knee lifts away. The air goes out of her and she sways, and then laughs. Her hair slips through Cara’s fingers when he does it again, and again. “It’s all right,” says Omera, so he stops, and then her hair pools over Cara’s arm as she bends to kiss him. 

Cara reaches for Omera’s thigh, and finds his hand already there. She feels it when Omera starts to grind her hips. She takes the Mandalorian’s hand and moves it to where the two of them are joined, and he needs no further instruction. Cara loops her arm over Omera’s back, holding her there, feeling them rock against each other. 

“Please,” Omera whines. 

“Don’t move,” he whispers, and Cara makes sure she doesn’t, and five thrusts later Omera shatters, loud and tremoring and pushing back against Cara with all her strength, but not enough to move her. 

His hand brushes Cara accidentally on its way to Omera’s back. She gets out of the way so he can hold her. 

“Like this,” he murmurs, “stay like this, _please_.” 

Omera’s brings her hands up, touching his face, kissing him. Cara bends the arm he’s resting on, and puts her hand in his hair. He sighs through his nose. 

A sound grows in his chest. It emerges as a breathy, shuddering moan when he comes. He tears his mouth away from Omera’s so they can both appreciate it. A fine sound. 

“Everybody good?” Cara asks as she rubs her fingertips over his scalp. 

“Not yet,” Omera says, and she’s moving off of him and over Cara, pressing Cara’s knees apart, letting her hair fall across Cara’s legs, and the next thing Cara feels is Omera’s mouth. 

Cara jerks upward, and the Mandalorian moves fast, angling himself so his chest is beneath her. He gets one arm around her, below her ribs, and he grips her just above the elbow. She could break the hold--she could break _him,_ without his armor--but she doesn’t. 

Omera starts slow, always. Slow and gentle, with just the warm tip of her tongue and her lips. Her hands stay on Cara’s thighs. If they could see, she would be watching Cara’s face. She’s probably looking out of habit. 

He eases Cara back to put her weight on him. His other hand goes to her brow, and laying her head against him draws a line of tension all the way down her body that makes all of this sharper, better. Leaving her throat open to him is a small price to pay. She knows he won’t take advantage, but there is a certain deep-seated distrust that’s hard to shake, even here, even with all they’ve done. 

“Was it all right, when I touched you?” he asks. 

She came, didn’t she? “It was good.” 

“Not as good as Omera.” 

“No one’s as good as Omera.” Omera’s jaw works, and Cara arches a little more, to put herself right up against her tongue. It doesn’t burn when Omera is on her; it’s a gentler warmth that spreads like dawn in the sky. 

The Mandalorian’s hand moves from Cara’s brow to her breast, skimming the shape, testing the weight of it. He handles her like an unfamiliar weapon. Omera handles her like a delicacy. “She knows you,” he says. 

“Yeah.” 

“She feels like home?” 

“She _is_ home. She--oh--” Dawn breaks. Cara grabs his arm but wills the rest of her muscles to relax, the better to let it suffuse. Omera keeps her perfect lips fastened around Cara’s clit until Cara lets out a full-body sigh. 

He starts to relax his hold on her, but then Omera is there, pinning his arm with the full weight of her on top of Cara. “Everybody good?” she says next to Cara’s ear. 

Cara loosens an arm to wrap it around Omera. “Yeah.” Yeah, she is. 

\- - - 

Cara wakes for no reason, and cannot stay there any longer.

It’s still dark; her internal chrono, well adjusted to Sorgan’s cycles, puts it half an hour or so before dawn. They have shifted, or perhaps they woke and went a second round while Cara slept through it somehow, and now Omera is on the other side of the Mandalorian, her arm draped across both of them. Cara pulls herself away from his back. She feels along the edge of the mat and comes across his helmet, moves it closer to him. 

She dresses in the margin between the blankets and the slatted walls, gets her boots on, and goes into the woods. 

By sunrise, she’s found a good solid tree on a low slope, and she puts her back to it and slumps to the ground. She can see the village from here, tiny and perfect in the soft orange light. 

She doesn’t notice that her cheeks are wet until she hears him approach, and she only hears him because he wants her to. 

“Hey,” she says, turning aside to swipe at her face. 

“Hey. You’re not… thinking of leaving.” 

That’s rich, coming from him. “No.” Why would she leave? She’s the one who stayed, who kept Omera’s bed warm, kept the village safe. She made a _place_ for herself here. 

She knew what would happen when he came back, but she only let herself acknowledge half of it. Even now she isn’t sure she can put it into words. 

Silently he sits, his back to the same tree but angled away enough to watch where she can’t see. Neither of them says anything for a long time. In the distance, tiny villagers start the day’s work. 

“Took me a while,” he says, “to convince myself I’m good enough for her.” 

“No one’s good enough for her.” What is he doing here? Omera’s waking up by now. Cara has spent one hundred and sixty-four nights in Omera’s bed, and never once did she let Omera wake up alone. 

“You and I are decent people, Cara.” 

Her mouth twists. “How would you even know?” 

His voice remains infuriatingly patient. “Because people who aren’t decent don’t feel guilt. I’ve done some things. I figure you must have, too. We don’t have to talk them out, but if you want to--” 

She cannot let him finish that sentence. “Did you use protection when you were in her last night?” 

His head turns so fast she hears the steel smack the tree. “Of course.” 

“So you don’t want kids of your own.” 

“The kid is my own.” 

“Genetically,” she presses. “It’s a point of pride for some folk.” 

“I never thought about it.” He hesitates. “I would. Think about it—with her. With us. But not right now. And technically that’s not—“

“The Way,” she finishes for him. She respects that, a culture that doesn’t rely on procreation to survive, even if it’s a little weird about it. There’s no shortage of orphans in this universe. If the helmet gives the foundlings a sense of belonging, she’s no one to judge. 

Well, she’s out of prying questions to knock him off his game. “When are you going back to the village?” 

“Whenever you’re ready.” 

She can’t keep the bitterness out of her voice. “Won’t even let me pull myself together in solitude, huh?” 

He crosses his legs and remains silent. His stillness is a weight that settles her, too. “I’ll never understand honorable people,” she mutters. 

“If that were true,” he says, “you’d still be busting heads for politicians.” 

Cara lets out a sigh. Maybe he has a point. 

“Do you?” 

“What?” 

“Do you want kids of your own? Genetically.” 

“I don’t want to--” she gestures vaguely-- “carry them. So they wouldn’t be mine, I guess.” 

“There are ways.” 

Cara huffs a laugh and echoes, “There are ways.” Not here on Sorgan though. She’ll have to leave that to the two of them. 

“Walker’s still in the pond,” he observes a while later. 

It’s a trophy, and a warning. “I was thinking about digging it out,” she says. “Scrape the mud off, try to get it working again. It’d be a nice bonding project with Winta.” 

“Cara, no.” 

“Cara, yes.” Her grin fades presently. “It’s Caracinthia.” 

“What?” 

“My name is short for Caracinthia.” 

“You’re serious.” 

“Me and my sisters are all named after flowers.” 

“Flowers,” he echoes, voice carefully flat. 

“I didn’t make fun of your name.” 

“No one’s making fun.” 

“Not gonna ask what my sisters look like?” 

He shrugs noisily. “I like Cara better.” 

“Damn right.” Satisfied, she stands and offers him her hand. He takes it and she hoists him up easily. 

Before she can let go, he puts his free hand at the back of her neck and pulls her close. It startles her, but he only touches his helmet to her forehead and holds her there for the span of one breath. “Okay?” he says. 

She blinks at her reflection in his visor. Her eyes sting again. “Okay,” she manages. 

He backs away. Cara throws her arm across his shoulders. He puts his around her waist. It’s comfortable there. “Too bad you missed out on Omera waking up,” she says as they start back. “She gets frisky in the mornings.” 

“She was awake when I left. She agreed I should come find you.” 

“Oh?” She looks at him sidelong, but he reveals nothing. 

“Not much she and I can do once it’s light.” 

“You could just keep the helmet on,” she says, and he trips on a root. Cara laughs, incredulous. “That really never occurred to you? Good thing I’m here, Mando.” 

There could be anything at all going on under that helmet, but as he turns it toward her, she’s pretty sure he’s smiling a little. “Good thing,” he says. 

They don’t part until they reach the house, where Winta and the child are eating on the porch. Omera wanders out and tilts her head to indicate that there’s food inside for the Mandalorian. He unwinds his arm from Cara, and she lets him go. 

Cara takes her usual seat, as well as the plate of breakfast that’s waiting for her. Omera stands behind her chair, and Cara leans her head back against her, and Omera bends until her hair falls against Cara’s face, and her fingers toy with Cara’s collar. “Good morning,” Omera says. 

“It really is,” says Cara, looking up at the only sky she needs now. Omera kisses her, in this place they have made, on a world that the rest of the galaxy can keep on passing by. 

**Author's Note:**

> I did not make up Cara's full name. That's from an interview with Gina Carano here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zTRCoa2OkHY&feature=youtu.be&t=28
> 
> This fic's title is from "Sunlight" by Hozier. 
> 
> I'm hauntedfalcon on Tumblr--come yell with me about this OT3.


End file.
